Entertainment

Top 10 World Cup Twitter Trends [CHART]

For continuous World Cup coverage, check out Mashable's 2010 World Cup Hub, which will be updated throughout the games.

Hey fútbol fanatics! If you haven't noticed, World Cup mania has gripped the Twitterverse and turned the Trending Topics to an international free-for-all of cheers, team pride, and trash talk.

As every time zone on earth woke up to the start of the 2010 tournament today, the tweets began pouring in at full speed. Up until now, much of the Twitter discussion has been about team selection and some post-season injuries that have thrown the World Cup appearance of key players into question.

So which topics, teams, and players have been the most Tweeted about in the weeks leading up to the games? Check out the scoreboard below, courtesy of our friends at What The Trend, and Liz Pullen who compiled these charts for us.

Note: These are trends leading up to the games, as data for matches was not yet available at the time of writing.

Most-Tweeted World Cup Topics

Rank

Trending Topic Points

Topic

Explanation

1

964 points

Vuvuzela

A vuvuzela, sometimes called a “lepatata” is a stadium horn commonly blown by football fans at matches in South Africa. It emits a very loud monotone sound (like an elephant or foghorn) which some people find annoying. Expect to hear it a lot in the next four weeks!

2

906 points

World Cup Kickoff Concert

This opening concert started off the World Cup tournament with performances by Shakira, John Legend, Alicia Keys and other artists.

3

681 points

Galvão Bueno

A much disliked Brazilian football commentator that Twitters were telling “Cala Boca!” (Shut up!).

4

636 points

Soccer Aid

A pre-World Cup charity event for UNICEF that was played in the UK on June 6th .

5

370 points

Waka Waka

The 2010 FIFA World Cup competition theme song sung by Shakira. The song is originally from Cameroon in West Africa.

6

267 points

Tonka Tanka

A prime-time TV show in Chile, hosted by Tonka Tomicic devoted to the World Cup.

7

198 points

#labarratvn

#labarratvn

8

167 points

#WC2010

This World Cup hashtag will climb to the top of the list by next week!

9

45 points

Bafana Bafana

The name of the South African National Team.

10

45 points

Orina

Spanish for “to pee”, trending because officials are testing World Cup players for steroid use.

Most-Tweeted World Cup Players

The matches have only just begun today (June 11th), so we don't have stats on first round results. However, trend data does reveal which players tweeters have been talking about this past week.

Need more social media World Cup coverage? Of course you do! Head on over to Mashable's World Cup headquarters, where you'll find real-time data on match scores, social mentions, and links to all our previous news and features.

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